How much does when you begin your craft experience affect your beer opinions?

We have way more choices of craft beer now than when I started 30 years ago. Along with all of those choices come some bad ones as well as good ones. My experience has been that you are starting your craft beer journey at the perfect time. More choice and variety is better. There are always going to be bad beers but they help us appreciate the good ones.

 

Yesterday I walked into a pub and saw to my delight that Shipstone's Bitter was on handpump.Although it's now brewed by a small "craft" brewery it's as close as it's possible to get to the Shipstone's Bitter I used to drink during my school lunchtimes over 50 years ago.Despite all the choice and weird and wonderful brews out there I've yet to find anything I enjoy more than this humble session ale.*
When the micro revoution began all those decades ago I embraced what came along. Beers of ridiculous strengths which made them really surrogate wines (beer is for drinking not sipping) and then perfectly good beers which IMO have been spoiled by unnecessary additions.Does a decent stout need cherries? Not if it isn't as good as the same stout without them.
To me it's more about enjoyment , I have been lucky to have had what these days would be termed "craft" beer for over half a century and luckier still that it's been on cask.I know that there are places with wider choice but as long as I can get beer which delights me I regard this as irrelevant.Some of the best restaurants have very restricted menus; go to a place with a large menu and you can be sure that most of it comes out of the freezer.

* except perhaps the superb mild from the same brewery.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

The title of this thread says it all.